About Matt McConnell

M

att McConnell draws on a wide range of experience and education to represent injured people and even companies in Louisiana legal matters. He practices in all Louisiana state and federal courts and is admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court.

Matt is Past-President of the Lafayette/Acadiana Chapter of the Federal Bar Association (FBA), and has been a member of the FBA’s Civil Practice Section Board. Matt is a current member of the Board of Directors of the Lafayette Bar Association

Matt has extensive courtroom experience from a 20-year civil litigation practice and from trying cases as a felony prosecutor in the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office under Harry Connick, Sr.

Matt has extensive business and general counsel experience, having represented the second largest employer in Greater New Orleans as well as numerous professionals and other businesses.

Matt graduated from Tulane Law School with honors and joined the Louisiana State Bar in 1996. A DeBlois-Sewanee scholar at Tulane, Matt argued on to the moot court team and was recognized with additional honors in trial advocacy. He also tried and won a federal civil trial as a student-lawyer, obtaining the Tulane Law Clinic’s then-highest judgment on record.

Matt worked his way through school as a deckhand on the Chesapeake Bay, as a Virginia hardwood-sawmill manager, and in the newspaper business as a paperboy for The Daily Advertiser, and as a newspaper-reporter and assistant newspaper editor for The Abbeville Meridonial.

Matt was raised in Lafayette, Louisiana, where he attended public and private schools including USL’s Hamilton Lab School, Woodvale and Plantation Elementary, Paul Breaux Middle (Gifted and Talented), and St. Thomas More High School. Growing up in Lafayette, Matt observed his parents serve their small business customers and discovered that he was naturally inclined to identify injustices and to serve “the little guys” of the world. He found career inspiration from Harper Lee’s “To Kill A Mockingbird”.

In 1992 Matt earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Sewanee: the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. He was a member of the academic honor society and an all-conference varsity baseball player.

Matt served as a Page in the United States House of Representatives where he was promoted ultimately to Speaker’s Page.

Matt is currently the chairman of the board of trustees for the Schools of the Sacred Heart (the Academy of the Sacred Heart for girls and Berchmans Academy for boys) in Grand Coteau, Louisiana. Sacred Heart was founded in 1821 and provides an independent Catholic single-gender college-prep education for pre-primary through grade twelve, with residential accommodations for girls in grades eighth through twelfth. The schools are a member of the worldwide network of Sacred Heart schools.

In the past Matt served the Louisiana Bar by grading Bar exams and the Lafayette Bar by promoting and conducting law and civic activities in public schools as well as serving as a volunteer lawyer to indigent clients.

Matt is a former board member of the Rotary Club of Lafayette and participates in the Dad’s Club at the Schools of the Sacred Heart.